Mike Riversdale

It's all terribly photogenic and I have to be careful that I don't flood the Daily Photo album with every damn conceivable view of this abandoned railway viaduct .

Yes, I s'pose it is a bit weird, in fact you're right, it's bloody strange eh! Ok, so child boxing is off the table, but what about balloon jumping, heck yes! Balloon jumping at Stag Lane Aerodrome. The participant is suspended in a harness under the balloon which appears to be sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper. (Photo Credit: Fox Photos/Getty Images) You can of course read all about child boxing (no, we're not doing it), balloon jumping, dwile flonking or dwyle flunking, eel-pulling, firework boxing, and flagpole sitting, goldfish swallowing (no!), octopus wrestling, ski ballet, ending with the classic cheese rolling.

Under the Iron Bridge* as the River Wye keeps on rising due to heavy December rains. * It's real name is the Duke Of Beaufort Bridge, and it used to be for trains.

A summary of the story from, New Movie Tells Story of Steven Spielberg ‘Jurassic Park’ Premiere… in Wales : In the 1980s, Carmarthen’s Lyric Cinema was ready to be demolished but local drama volunteer Liz Evans thought the theater would be perfect for staging shows and decided to mount a production of Jesus Christ Superstar . Evans soon realised the potential was there to keep it as a venue. How to follow Jesus? Jurassic Park , of course! According to reports, a premiere of Jurassic Park was initially arranged, only to be canceled for unspecified reasons, however her cause was taken up by friend Richard Goodridge, the mayor at the time. He wrote directly to Steven Spielberg complaining about the aborted premiere. Goodridge was then contacted by Spielberg’s reps and the show was back on. This screening took place at the same time as the Royal premiere in London. Upping the ante, Evans apparently pipped their projectionist to the post, ensuring Wales got it shown first by mere minutes.

All Monmouth tourists should take a drive up to the Round House on top of the Kymin and take photos of the panoramic view from above. I have plenty . This is different though, a view up to the Kymin. In the forefront is the Duke Of Beaufort Bridge , known locally as the Iron Bridge. It then rises up from the River Wye , peaking over some Wyesham housetops and trees, to a sunlit Kymin field, finally arriving at the Round House at the top. Moody sky as well eh. Oh, and in 2015 Huw Evans ran up to the top and back down in a record 39m 50s.

Before you ask, AoNZ = Aotearoa New Zealand. NZ's Joanah Ngan-Woo beats England's Abbie Ward to the ball in the final lineout of the match during the 2021 Women's Rugby World Cup. Copyright: © Dave Lintott Photography 2022 Of course winning the Rugby World Cup, against England, on home turf, by 3 points, with a brilliant move in the last seconds, will always be joyful. It wasn't just the win though, it was the way the Black Ferns did from game one AND how all of the teams played during the 2021 competition (played in 2022). It's the impossible action that captured a nation. The 2021 Rugby World Cup has been won, and it wasn't by the team almost nailed-on before things began. This Saturday, the Black Ferns completed the greatest moment in their history as they won the World Cup in front of the biggest crowd they'd ever seen. So what went wrong with the Red Roses, and how did New Zealand seal it? I know it's a few years old but if Scott "Razor"

A long long time ago I was staying in  Monmouth , no not last year, I mean a long long time ago, and at the now moved Chippy playground was a little bit of graffiti (well, just graffito really). I took a photo of the word "Smile" and it's been the cover image for my "Street Art" photo album ever since. Imagine my delight dear reader (well, just reado really ;) when I spotted this last year in the Monmouth underground pass. I like to imagine that this was created by the offspring of the original 🤔😁

"The best thing since sliced bread." - but when was 'sliced bread'? On Saturday July 7th, 1928 , the Chillicothe Baking Company in Chillicothe, Missouri , made history by selling the first pre-sliced bread using a machine created by Otto Frederick Rohwedder . So, everything since July 7th, 1928 is "since sliced bread".  Many sources say the first record of the idiom is thought to be in 1952, when the famous comedian Red Skelton said in an interview with the Salisbury Times: “Don’t worry about television. It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.” However, one source found it used in The Northern Whig (Belfast, Ireland) of Thursday 8th March 1951, which quoted the American journalist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-65) writing in the New York Journal-American about British film actor Stewart Granger. In the article, Kilgallen’s sister is quoted as saying: “He is the greatest thing since sliced bread!”  [source:  Origin of the Phrase ‘The Best Thing Since Sliced Bre

A Christmas decoration on Monnow Street in the country town of Monmouth in Wales.

I've gone all in and you can subscribe to a podcast of my NotebookLM created audio summaries of specific large blog posts, currently 4 episodes. You can use whatever podcast app you want, from the popular Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Pocket casts, but the choice is you.

I first saw an animated GIF of the above a few years ago and was charmed by it, as was creator of the following video, John Liebler , that inspired it.   I make my living creating art and animation of the beautiful and often surreal world that exists within our living (and sometimes dying) cells. Although I've been doing it since the late ’90s, It was in 2006 that The Inner Life of the Cell brought my work to the widest audience on Earth: Youtube. Originally planned as a classroom tool, Inner Life takes the viewer through many of the inner workings of a leukocyte (or white blood cell) showing many of the cellular structures and organelles along the way. I spent about a year and a half creating about eight and a half minutes of animation under the guidance of Dr. Robert Lue and Dr. Alain Viel. As the footage was rendered, we started to get a feeling that this was something special. When it was finished, I thought that the visuals could stand on their own to show the wonder of the c

Yes. Mike's Audio Summaries , is a YouTube podcast experiment. I've published three at time of writing this and they have caused much amusement, confusion, and conversation. So how does each episode get produced, here's the complete run down of how I do it. 1: Write a blog post It all starts with me having an idea of blog post that will be lengthy, something that will take me a while to write as it is fact heavy, has many sections, and needs me to actually do some research.  The posts I use for the AI audio summaries are definitely not based in my usual posts, they just don't have enough in them. 2: Use NotebookLM Once I've written my post and it is published I then go to Google's NotebookLM: https://notebooklm.google/ NotebookLM (Google NotebookLM) is a research and note-taking online tool developed by Google Labs that uses artificial intelligence (AI), specifically Google Gemini, to assist users in interacting with their documents. It can generate summaries, e